


The Ladies of Briarfield

by regshoe



Category: Shirley - Charlotte Bronte
Genre: Alternate Universe - Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Fusion, F/F, Fairies, Magic, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 09:49:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17020389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regshoe/pseuds/regshoe
Summary: Once, it has been said, there were fairies in Fieldhead Hollow.





	The Ladies of Briarfield

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alona](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alona/gifts).



> Thank you for the brilliant idea of combining these two books—I knew as soon as I saw the prompt that I had to write it, and I hope you enjoy the result. Many thanks also to phnelt for beta reading!

The arrival of Miss Shirley Keeldar to take up her place as lord of the manor—as it were—of Fieldhead naturally gave rise to great interest and attention amongst her new neighbours. As soon as word got around, therefore, that Miss Keeldar was a keen student of theoretical magic, the subject of magic became all at once immensely interesting to them. Every conversation seemed to take on a magical aspect. Mr Malone, Mr Donne and Mr Sweeting found their after-dinner arguments turning upon such subjects as magical heresies and the monastic foundations of the Raven King; while Mr Moore and Mr Yorke had a terrible row about the Johannites, upon whose relation to magical history and its applicability to the present-day state of things in Yorkshire they could never agree.

Mr Helstone, however, remained aloof from such discussions. He had, of course, his opinions on magic, but did not take much interest in debating them in society. It came as some surprise to the neighbourhood, then, when he went up to Fieldhead a few days after Miss Keeldar’s arrival there, to make her acquaintance and to introduce her to his niece.

The conversation went on in a pleasant, ordinary manner, but it must soon come round to the great subject. It began when Mr Helstone smilingly accused Miss Keeldar of being a Jacobin—and with her interest in magic, he added with a look of mock horror, perhaps a Johannite also?

‘You shall have to judge for yourself how incorrect I am in politics,’ she said, returning his smile. ‘In any case, I have heard from Mr Moore what happened to the waggons that were to have brought him his last lot of machines—a story which I hope protects me from too much sympathy. But I like the north very well so far,’ she went on, ‘and I have very much looked forward to returning to Yorkshire. With its history and associations, it must be a place of great attraction for any magician, and even more so for one who was born here. Such wild and romantic scenery seems just the background for strange magical adventures.’ Turning to Miss Helstone (who had hung back quietly up until this point, only looking up at the mention of Mr Moore’s name), she added, ‘You must tell me all about the stories of fairies and magical happenings that are known in this place, for I am sure there are many to hear.’

Looking somewhat animated at last, Miss Helstone said, ‘Oh, yes. There are all sorts of stories about fairies dancing in the Hollow, and such things. I would be pleased to tell them to you.’

‘I shall invite you to tea, so that you may do so.’

Miss Helstone blushed (she was a little shy) and murmured that she was very fond of fairy-tales. ‘But,’ she added, ‘haven’t you a library of magical books? I am sure they can tell you much more than I could about fairies.’

‘I do, though they are hardly the great magical books you imagine; it is a poor library enough. What they tell me is useful to know, I am sure, but it is not alive in the way that old ballads and nursery-tales always seem to be when they speak of fairies.’

After that, the conversation turned to other subjects; but these last words remained in Caroline Helstone’s memory, and she was more glad than she had been for many days past when, a short while afterwards, she did receive an invitation to take tea at Fieldhead with Miss Keeldar.

*

From that time onwards, Shirley Keeldar and Caroline Helstone were more and more frequently in each other’s company. At first their conversations, over tea at Fieldhead or on walks about the country around it, were largely on common subjects, of which they found no small number of shared interest and enjoyment—the scenery and history of the neighbourhood, books and poetry, their opinions of their neighbours, their hopes and fears for their future lives—but, as time went on, they spoke increasingly often of magic. Caroline, as Shirley had hoped she would, told her some of the local fairy-stories, and showed her the places where the things in these tales were supposed to have happened: the strange twisted rowan-tree at the edge of Nunnwood that was said to be eight hundred years old, and to have been enchanted by the Raven King so that it would live forever; the bleak, solitary spot on Stilbro’ Moor which the fairy host, riding to fight a battle against the King of Southern England, had crossed, and where a sweep of moor-grass was still a slightly darker brown than the grass around it, as though its very blades remembered their passing. At such sights, and at the outlandish stories with which Caroline accompanied them, Shirley’s eyes would light up with a strange keen glitter.

One morning, Caroline arrived at Fieldhead full of plans for another walk across Nunnely Common; but the rain, which began to fall while she was walking over from the rectory and rapidly worsened, made any such idea quite impracticable. Shirley, standing at the window of the oak-parlour watching the weather, seemed quite transfixed by the sight. By now the rain was falling in great sweeping sheets, turning the landscape behind it to a grey ghost that shivered in the wind.

After some minutes of this, however, she turned round suddenly and said, with a bright smile, ‘I know what we shall do instead. Come with me,’ and she took Caroline’s hand and led her across the hall and into the library.

Caroline, who had yet to see this most important of a magician’s rooms, followed her eagerly to a little shelf tucked away at the back of the library. Compared to those on the other shelves, the books were an odd assortment: neat modern volumes sat alongside rough, tattered books with their titles worn away that looked as though they might be centuries old. Some of them appeared to be handwritten notebooks. ‘These,’ said Shirley, ‘are my magical library. Not very impressive, I fear, but I have learnt a little from them.’

She handed a book to Caroline. Turning the pages gingerly, for some of them looked to be in imminent danger of falling out, Caroline read a passage—a description of some grand castle in Faerie.

‘How did you come by these books, Shirley?’ she said at length, having read all about the faraway castle and—a little reluctantly—put the book down. ‘I have heard that it is very difficult to find books of magic anywhere.’

‘Oh, these are not books _of_ magic—I am not so great a magician as that.’ You will know, reader, if you take any interest in the study of magic, how important is the distinction between books of magic and books about magic, which Shirley now explained. ‘I inherited about half of them from a great-aunt of mine, a theoretical magician herself—the notebooks are hers. That was four years ago. I suppose,’ she went on in a meditative tone, ‘that between that opportunity and my early memories of Yorkshire—surely the most magical part of this country—it seemed quite a natural thing to do, to pursue the interest I found in them further.’

Caroline took another book from the shelf—one of the newer ones, this time—and turned it over. It was _A Child’s History of the Raven King_ by Lord Portishead.

‘Oh, that is a charming little book,’ said Shirley. ‘I read it over and over again when I was first beginning to study magic seriously. I always think there is so much in history—but you must read it, and judge for yourself! You may borrow it, if you like—I do think you would enjoy it.’

Caroline looked up, surprised and pleased by this generosity. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured. ‘I would like that very much.’

From that day, Caroline’s new-found interest in the study of magic and magical history continued to grow. She read _A Child’s History of the Raven King_ , and then she read various other books from Shirley’s library. Meanwhile she and Shirley continued their country walks and their discussions—of all manner of things, but especially of topics relating to magic. Caroline began to develop decided opinions upon magic, and to debate them with Shirley; and in this way the spring passed very pleasantly.

*

‘She may amuse herself with the study of magic, as much as with any other rational and improving occupation.’ Thus Dora Sykes, to her sister Harriet, as they took a stroll together one fine May morning. They were discussing Miss Keelder, who—being both a prominent and an eccentric figure in that little society—remained a favourite topic amongst all who took any interest in their neighbours’ affairs. ‘Magic,’ Dora continued, ‘has become quite respectable these days, what with Mr Norrell and Mr Strange doing great feats of magic for the Government in London.’

‘I do not say that I am against magic as such,’ said Harriet. ‘I only meant that it is not quite a _suitable_ thing for a lady to devote quite as much time to as she does. And I am concerned at how Caroline Helstone has taken to the whole thing, as well, such a nice girl that she is.’ Harriet’s opinion was a popular one. While, of course, no true Yorkshireman or woman could be really opposed to magic itself, there was a general feeling that it belonged in the same category as the running of estates and the business of mills—that is, a worthy occupation, but not one for a lady to take more than a passing interest in.

‘Now, I quite disagree with you there!’ said Dora. ‘Caroline Helstone is looking more well than she has in months—I worried at her appearance the last time we were at the Rectory, but since then she has improved marvellously.’ Harriet was forced to accept that this was so, and Dora went on, smiling, ‘So you must admit that magic has its benefits, for I cannot see to what else the change can be due.’

‘Well, whatever the reasons, I am glad that Caroline is so much better,’ said Harriet, and so the sisters made up their quarrel, and went on their way together.

Dora Sykes was perfectly right that Caroline was looking a good deal better than she had done before Shirley’s arrival; and, if she was not exactly correct in her estimation of the causes of this change, neither was she entirely wrong. Whatever else might have been the cause of Caroline’s late depression of spirits, it originated in part from, and certainly was much worsened by, the terrible monotony of the life which society (with its unsympathetic view of such things as mill-business and magic) thinks proper for respectable young ladies. Having no occupation to distract her from her sorrows or to turn her thoughts to a different course, it was little wonder that Caroline had been quite out of spirits. Now, reading about magical history and discussing magic with Shirley had given her a new interest; and so it was equally little surprising that her mood and general health should be somewhat improved. And perhaps this, in turn, reflected itself back onto the heartache from which the trouble had sprung. For, certainly, Caroline’s thoughts now turned less and less to Hollow’s-cottage and its inhabitants, and she had all but given up her wistful walks in that direction—though she was scarcely aware of the change. Even her study of French (it has, sadly, to be admitted) was somewhat neglected in favour of magic.

One evening, Caroline stayed rather late at Fieldhead. During the afternoon Shirley had begun idly singing to herself some of the old north-country ballads about the Raven King, and Caroline, enchanted, had persuaded her to sit down at the piano and sing them properly for her, an occupation in which they both quite forgot the passage of time. When, at length, Caroline had to ready herself to depart, Shirley offered to accompany her back to Briarfield rectory.

Caroline happily accepted the offer, ‘but,’ she said, ‘will you not mind walking back in the dark?’

Shirley smiled. ‘I am not afraid of the dark,’ she said. ‘How could any North Englishwoman be?’

Late as it was, the year was far enough advanced that the last light had not yet faded entirely. As they left Fieldhead the sky and the shadows were both the same deep, inky blue, as though drawn across the landscape by a generous and unsteady pen. A white owl drifted past over the fields on soft, silent wings, ‘looking so much like a ghost,’ as Caroline remarked, speaking softly so as not to frighten the bird.

‘Do you suppose there are ghosts of animals?’ asked Shirley, watching as the owl twisted and pivoted in mid-air, plunging towards the unsuspecting prey hidden amidst the long grass. ‘Of course there are human ghosts—there are so many accounts of them in the magical histories, though not so many now as there were in olden times.’

‘I think birds certainly must have spirits, of a kind,’ said Caroline. ‘They always seem to me to be the most magical of all animals. I have never felt so close to the Otherlands as when I walk along the lanes very early on a spring morning, when all is quiet save for the sound of birds, singing as though they were casting a spell over the dawn—and who knows where they might fly away to, at the day’s end?’

Shirley no longer watched the owl, which in any case had flown off and disappeared in the growing gloom; she gazed at Caroline’s face as she spoke, with a peculiar soft smile. ‘Thomas Lanchester said something similar about birds, I believe. I have not got the book itself, of course—such books are very rare—or I would lend it to you.’

‘It is very provoking how we can never get all the books we want. I think sometimes how narrow our view of magic must be, in this little corner—how much more the Raven King and the Aureate magicians must have known, and how little of their words and their magic we have now.’

‘Most provoking of all is that we cannot do any sort of practical magic. I have long wished to say a spell and see it come to life before me.’

‘But then, you know, that problem is hardly confined to us. And perhaps books are not so necessary for magic, after all. The Raven King could not even read when he first came to England.’

They talked on in this way for a while longer, until they came to the Rectory garden-wall. Perhaps all the talk of magic had cast its spell over the place, for the stones of the wall seemed to hold strange shadows, and the breeze seemed to whisper tales of the far-off places from which it had come—if only they could have understood its words.

‘On a night like this,’ said Caroline in hushed tones, ‘I feel as though a fairy might appear from out of that shadow at any moment, and go dancing round the trees in the starlight.’

Shirley had put her arm round Caroline’s waist as they stood there; as they said their farewells Caroline felt an odd sort of warm, peaceful contentment. She thought it must be the feeling of the old magic lingering in the place.

She turned and walked in silence back to the Rectory.

*

A few days after this, Caroline, who had not entirely given up her recent resolution of being selflessly charitable, went to call on Miss Ainley.

‘I walked over to see Mrs Fletcher yesterday morning,’ said Miss Ainley, as she poured out the tea. ‘The baby is doing very well now, and she particularly asked me to thank you for the clothes you sent.’ Caroline, who had spent many variously frustrating hours of needlework on those baby-clothes, was gratified to hear that they were doing some good. ‘Now, on the way back, I met Mrs Farren, and she told me the most curious story—I thought you might like to hear it, what with the interest you take in magic.’

‘Oh? What was it about?’

‘Well,’ said Miss Ainley, putting down her teacup, ’I suppose you know the old story that there used to be a fairy road leading by Nunnwood.’

‘Yes,’ said Caroline, really interested now. She and Shirley had often discussed this tale, and had once made an excursion over to Nunnwood to see if they could find ‘ _the bonny road, that winds about the ferny brae_ ,’ but to no avail.

‘Well, Mrs Farren says that her husband was on some errand near the place last week, when he saw that the trees and bushes were grown much higher than he had ever seen them before. He walked on between them, and suddenly had the feeling that he was not in Yorkshire at all—the sky changed, he said, and the trees took on a sinister appearance. He went back at once, and now believes that he narrowly escaped being carried off into Faerie.’

‘Then the old fairy road is open again?’ said Caroline, leaning forward.

‘So Mrs Farren says. I am not sure that I believe her myself, but it was a curious thing to hear. Someone really ought to write down the traditional stories of this neighbourhood—I have heard many such tales, and they would make a most interesting collection.’

Of course, Caroline repeated the story to Shirley at the first opportunity; and, of course, Shirley immediately proposed that they go to the place William Farren had described and attempt to travel into Faerie. It had long been a great desire of hers; ‘and think what places we might see and explore! All the wonderful things that are said to be in Faerie—vast forests stretching away over the hills, ancient castles covered in ivy where high and proud fairy-kings rule over their strange enchanted kingdoms, unicorns grazing at dusk on pastures jewelled with dew and gossamer, and who knows what else besides!’

She need not hear the bells of Faerie ringing out across the meadows, thought Caroline, to be enchanted into going there, when she had Shirley’s enthusiastic imaginings—and the keen, bright look in her grey eyes—to enchant her in their place.

*

‘Of course, the magical histories say that all the fairy roads closed up when the Raven King left England, and have remained so ever since,’ said Shirley, ‘but there have always been stories. The farmer who saw the King go riding by his fields one morning may not have gone to Faerie himself, but there was certainly a road there—and I for one am sure that that story is true.’

It was the afternoon of the next day, and they were journeying towards Nunnwood loaded with the various provisions which, between them, they had thought necessary for a trip into Faerie: a small hand-mirror, some twigs from a rowan tree, a supply of food (prepared by an unsuspecting Mrs Gill that morning; they needed to bring food, of course, because travellers in Faerie should never eat any that they find there) and a selection of warm woollen shawls (while it was summer in England, for all they knew it might be the dead of winter in the Otherlands).

‘This is the place William Farren described,’ said Caroline. She indicated a tall, spreading oak at the edge of the wood—a solidly English tree, hardly the sort of thing one would expect to find standing guard over a road into Faerie. ‘Just through there, behind that old hedge.’

There was, indeed, a kind of trackway leading between the hedge and the border of the wood. It was badly overgrown: grass and wildflowers covered the open ground, and brambles trailed over their path as they went along the track hand in hand. 

Suddenly Caroline stooped to the ground with an exclamation. ‘Look at this flower! Such a pretty thing, but I do not recognise it at all.’

She rose, pointing out to Shirley the patch of straggling stems where the strange flower was growing—but, as she did so, she looked around her, and whatever else she had been going to say about the flower faded into silence.

It was not that they were immediately in another place altogether; at least, it did not appear so. The scene remained that of a bright woodland edge in early summer, but it was all somehow shifted, as though the place were a song that was suddenly being played in a different key. The leaves above them trembled in another breeze than that which had blown upon the Yorkshire hillsides. There was no longer any sight of the old oak.

Caroline looked at Shirley, her eyes shining.

Without a word, they continued along the path, which appeared to carry on for some distance into the wood—which, by now, was quite obviously no longer Nunnwood. The path was bordered by a low wall; it might have been made of the same sandy-grey stone as most of the buildings around Briarfield, but it was so overgrown with mosses, ferns and more flowers like the one Caroline had found that it was difficult to tell. The trees on either side met above their heads, obscuring a sky which seemed to grow darker than the sky had been over England.

A rustling noise came from the wood, away to their left. The dense trees entirely obscured its source, but the sound was distinct, and both girls stopped and looked in its direction.

‘A gryphon, I’ve no doubt,’ said Shirley solemnly.

‘Or a unicorn, or a winged horse,’ said Caroline. ‘Some sort of magical animal; it must be.’

‘I suppose it is searching amongst these trees for a place where it can spread its great wings and take flight.’

‘Perhaps it will go the way we have come, and end up in England, and give someone a tremendous fright. There are stories about such things.’

They came to a narrow, rude wooden bridge crossing a beck, where they stopped for a moment. The noise of the stream, rushing over polished rocks, was wonderfully clear and strangely beautiful; Caroline said she thought she could hear a pipe playing a merry tune somewhere in the distance, as though it were carried in the sound of the water, and Shirley was amused at this piece of whimsy, ‘but, you know, it may be enchanted. Anything may be in this place. We had better keep our wits about us, Caroline.’

Because of the noise of the stream, it was not until the rider was quite close to the bridge that either of the girls heard the sound of hoofs and looked round. They saw what appeared to be a rather superior-looking young lady, seated upon the back of a grey mare. She wore a long mantle of a colour that might have been dark green, or deep purple, or yet again a little red, and her golden hair was swept over her shoulder in long waves.

She stopped on the bridge and regarded Shirley and Caroline for some moments with a sort of supercilious curiosity, but did not say anything; it was left to Shirley to venture a greeting. ‘Could you,’ she added, ‘tell us where we are? We are travellers from a distant place, and we do not know this land.’

The young lady smiled. ‘Why, that is no matter,’ she said, ‘for we are less than a mile from my house; if you continue on this road, you are sure to find it.’ Perhaps she expected them to understand what or where her house was, for she provided no further information on their whereabouts. ‘If you require any rest or refreshment after your travels, I am sure my servants will provide it, for I am always very generous. I am only sorry that I cannot accompany you there myself, but urgent business calls me away.’

They thanked the young lady and wished her a good journey, and she rode away into the woods. There were a great many little silver bells braided into the horse’s white mane, and their tinkling as the animal moved blended so perfectly with the sound of the beck that it was little wonder neither of them had noticed it before.

‘Well!’ said Shirley, once the lady was quite out of hearing. ‘Who do you suppose she was?’

‘Some great lady of whatever fairy-kingdom we are in,’ said Caroline decidedly. ‘I do not think we ought to go to her house, though the offer was very kind.’

They agreed that they had done enough exploring for one morning’s work, and turned back towards the road into Yorkshire. But perhaps they mistook the path here, for instead of the familiar shades of Nunnwood, the aspect of the place began to change again. Though none of the trees were quite like English trees, they now began to look more like yews and pines than ashes and birches, and they crowded so close on either side as to block out the sky entirely.

They continued onwards, and now the path became narrower. Despite the gloom cast by the trees, briars apparently flourished beneath them, and the way became obstructed by thorns and tangled stems. A bell began to toll in the distance, a strange and eerie sound. Eventually it became difficult to see where the path was at all. Shirley spent some time disentangling the hem of her gown from a particularly stubborn briar, and, having freed herself, she stood up and said, ‘Cary, we ought to go back and try another route. This way will not let us through much further, and there is—‘

She turned round, and looked back down the path and on through the briars, but there was nowhere any sign of Caroline.

*

Caroline had no very clear sense of the next few moments. It seemed to her that she stepped over a tree root, thinking she saw the path ahead of her, and found herself instead in the corner of a great shadowy room. There were no windows, and no sight of her previous surroundings. The room had no furniture; the light from the candles that lined the panelled walls at intervals fell only on a series of tapestries, and on a huge, intricately carved wooden door set into the opposite wall. Caroline examined the tapestry closest to her. It showed a battle scene, with a great army apparently storming a hilltop castle and another defending it. The detail was wonderfully fine; the embroiderer had not stinted in illustrating the blood and carnage of battle, nor the horrible grins on the faces of the soldiers.

With a shudder, Caroline turned away from the tapestry and made her way over to the door. This, too, had been worked in beautiful detail, with carvings of trees, flowers and ivy. From behind the door there came sounds of conversation and laughter, and music—the loveliest music, Caroline thought, that she had ever heard (though she could not, had you asked, have said quite what instruments were playing, or whether the tune were a waltz or a country dance).

Perhaps she had some thought of searching through the door for a way of escape, for she must get back—was it Yorkshire she had come from?—but, hearing that wonderful music, she realised that the great lords and ladies who lived in this place must be dancing. They would not be pleased if a stranger intruded upon their party. So she abandoned the door, and turned back to the room.

Surely, she thought, there had been no furniture in the room when she arrived? But, then, that had been a long time ago, and perhaps the servants had brought in the great table while she was not looking. Of course, they were setting out refreshments for the dancers, who would want some food after their exertions. But such food! There were piles of fruit, apples and blackberries heaped upon other fruits of outlandishly bright colours, which Caroline did not recognise. There was a great bird, roasted to golden-brown perfection and decorated with its own feathers, which were something like those of a pheasant, but far brighter and seeming to change colour entirely when viewed from different angles. There was a gigantic pie, whose contents she could only guess at, but whose crust was adorned with little pastry figures of dancers, surely likenesses of the great people in the room beyond the oak door. There was, as a centrepiece, a sugar sculpture of a swan, its wings raised in regal grandeur, that might have been a real bird but for the way its feathers glittered in the candlelight. There were many more things besides, but Caroline’s eyes became tired by the details as the realisation, more salient than her wonder, grew of how terribly hungry she was.

The lords and ladies would be angry if they knew she had taken anything, and so she hesitated; but then a voice said to her, ‘Won’t you take something? You must eat, after your long journey,’ and she realised that the lady of the house, a lady whom she had seen somewhere recently—but where?—was standing by the door.

She reached out and took a little cake. It was covered in tiny piped swirls of icing the colour of lost love, a very pretty shade. However, Caroline did not eat, but stood frowning at the cake for some moments. Something was wrong; she had forgotten something vitally important…

Very slowly, quietly, Caroline let the cake drop from her hand and stepped back from the table, for she had remembered. What she had remembered was that morning, when she had been packing bread and cheese into a little basket and someone had taken hold of her hand and said, ‘Now, Cary, these are very important, for we must not eat any food we find there,’ and smiled.

‘Shirley…’ she whispered, and following that first memory many more came back to her. She knew now—perfectly clearly, as though a spell had broken—that she was in a castle or a _brugh_ in Faerie, that some magic upon the place had confused her mind and almost led her to take a step that might have had terrible consequences. The fairies—she knew the right name for them now—were dancing in the next room at that very moment. More importantly than anything else, she remembered Shirley—but Shirley was not here, and she did not know how to find her again.

She rounded on the fairy lady, now knowing her to be the rider they had met at the bridge, who had approached her with a look of concern on her face, and said, ‘You tried to trick me!’

‘There is no trick—I only want to help,’ said the lady, laying her hand on Caroline’s arm, but with a hint of strength beneath the kindly touch. More than her words had been a trick, Caroline now realised. The wondrous glamour of the room was all changed: the tapestries looked faded and threadbare; the polished wood panelling and ornate carvings were replaced by walls of roughly hewn stone. The music playing beyond the door (now a sort of curtain of worn cloth) was only a single fiddle, wailing an unnerving tune.

Caroline pulled her arm away from the fairy, and turned and ran; the music followed her.

*

It seemed to Shirley that she stepped over a tree root, thinking she saw the path ahead of her, and before her were the bright sunlit leaves and clear sky of Nunnwood.

She turned and turned again, searched between the trees, shouted Caroline’s name, but there was no doubt that she was alone. Above her was the ancient oak tree that stood at the entrance to the fairy-road, and of course the next thing Shirley tried was to take the same path she and Caroline had taken earlier that day. It only led her back round again to the edge of the wood and the green English fields stretching away up the hillside. She remembered, vaguely, the story of the king who ‘ _played the notes o’ joy_ ’ to charm the fairies into giving up his wife; if only she could do the same…

She sat down on the ground, setting her basket of provisions beside her, and tried to order her mind. Action, she found, was generally easiest when thought was quiet, but her thoughts now were as far from calm as ever they had been.

Presently, something moved in the trees above her. She looked up; a starling sat at the top of a birch tree, vigorously preening its glossy feathers. It looked once or twice around itself, as though judging the air, and then with a little shrill whistle it took wing, and flew off—beneath the oak, and down between the trees where she had just been walking—and was gone.

Who knew where a little bird might fly to, or what magic lifted its wing on the way?

All was quiet, and Shirley knew what she must do.

She called out to the little bird, if it could still hear her where it had gone, and asked it to trace a path for her to wherever Caroline was. Then she spoke to the old oak tree, imploring it to think of the olden days when it had watched the travellers go down the bonny road. It had not quite forgotten, or the path would not have been there that morning, and might it not now remember? She asked it to let her go where the magicians of old had gone, if it still had any thought or love for English magicians.

For a few moments nothing happened. Then there was a rustling of leaves amongst the trees lining the path, and a little thread of light appeared, winding beneath the trees and disappearing.

Shirley thought she heard the voice of the old oak in answer, as she set off down the fairy road at a run. There was no time to think about what she had done, or what it meant. The trees might not be so kind for long.

*

The corridor down which Caroline had fled would have come to a dead end, had not the building by now been in such a sorry state that the ceiling was open to the sky and the walls had half crumbled away. From the vantage point this afforded Caroline could see that the castle was built into the side of a hill. Vaguely, she remembered reading in one of Shirley’s books that most fairy dwelling were; sometimes one reached them by going under a hill in England. She could simply step from the topmost stones of the wall and onto the grass of the hillside.

She turned, and almost stumbled into the fairy lady; she had not been quick enough in her flight, after all.

‘Why,’ said the lady, ‘did you refuse what I offered you? I only meant to be kind. This country which you know so little is a harsh place, and you ought to have been glad to have me as a friend.’ Her manner was anything but friendly. Caroline backed away from her, hoping that in her rage the lady would not notice; she could see a patch of brightness in amongst the dark forest surrounding them, and made for that. ‘Now you will know,’ the lady went on, ‘how unwise you are to have chosen me for an enemy instead.’

Caroline staggered and fell; some force had propelled her down the hillside. Somehow she could not get to her feet; her head felt heavy, and her ankle had twisted awkwardly under her as she fell, and she wanted simply to lie down and sleep. The fairy walked towards her. There was no escape now, but something remaining in Caroline led her to kick her good foot out, striking the fairy in the shin. It was a feeble enough attack, but the fairy was not expecting it, and—more affronted than really hurt—she drew back for a moment. 

Someone was calling Caroline’s name, an impossibly welcome voice, and as she staggered unsteadily to her feet she felt an arm go round her waist and help her to stand. The bright sunlit trees were before her, much closer now and getting nearer still—and, after that, she remembered no more.

*

It was some time later that Caroline opened her eyes upon a familiar view. She thought she had been somewhere far away, and marvelled at seeing the garden of Fieldhead before her, bright beneath the summer sun. She pushed aside the bedclothes and leaned forward for a better look.

‘Caroline.’ At that voice—as familiar as the garden below, but speaking with an odd tone—she turned at once. Shirley was sitting on the bed, her eyes seeming full of the same strange expression that was in her voice.

Caroline moved towards her, and slowly wrapped her arms around Shirley’s neck; it seemed the right thing to do. She returned the embrace with a sort of fierce tenderness.

Presently Shirley said, ‘I was terribly afraid that you would still be under some enchantment, but I see’—she looked searchingly into Caroline’s eyes, half a smile on her lips—‘that you are not.’

Now Caroline looked round the room; she recognised it as one of Fieldhead’s spare bedrooms. Books, brought from the library downstairs, were stacked on the little table by her bedside, and on the window ledge were a basin and several glasses full of water. Caroline sat up. ‘Shirley, have you been trying to do magic?’ she said, in some surprise.

‘Belasis’s Scopus,’ said Shirley. ‘I supposed I might be able to—I mean, it is a spell for detecting magic, so I hoped it would tell me whether you were still enchanted, or had been magically harmed in some way. Well, it has not worked, but I am quite satisfied that there is no enchantment—no hint of the air of Faerie persists around you.’

‘No; I got away in time,’ said Caroline vaguely. She did not remember much of what had happened after she had become separated from Shirley in the forest. ‘But my foot aches terribly.’

‘A perfectly natural injury,’ said Shirley, ‘and one that will heal soon, I am sure—and Doctor MacTurk agrees.’

Caroline, satisfied for the present, lay back on the pillows. Shirley reached out a hand and stroked her cheek, the queer half-smile returning to her face. ‘Poor Cary,’ she said. ‘You have had rather an ordeal—not quite the adventure we hoped for.’

Caroline smiled wryly. ‘Well, I have got safely through it after all, thanks to you,’ she said. ‘I think it was rather an exciting adventure—and we have learnt much about Faerie. We ought to write an account of our journey, and send it to one of the magical periodicals.’

It soon became generally known that Caroline Helstone had, while walking in the garden on a visit to her friend, suffered an accident which required her—in her still weak state of health—to remain at Fieldhead for a short time while she recovered. Her friends all sent their good wishes; Hortense Moore brought over a dish of bouilli, which Shirley pronounced most excellent. Within a few days Caroline’s foot ceased much to trouble her, and she felt quite well in her mind; but things were not exactly as they had been. Despite Shirley’s unfailing care and attentiveness in looking after her, Caroline became distinctly suspicious that she was hiding something from her. She kept, quite unusually for her, away from the topic of magic after that first conversation, and would not speak at all of how she had found and rescued Caroline in Faerie. After several days of this, Caroline had begun to be really worried, and decided to confront her.

‘Shirley,’ she said, as they sat together one evening in the oak-parlour, ‘you have not told me everything that happened in Faerie. You must not keep things from me—tell me—do you suspect that some fairy-magic is still affecting me, after all? Is that why you will not speak of it, or of any sort of magic?’

‘Not at all,’ said Shirley, shocked. That her behaviour might be seen in this light had not occurred to her. ‘If I thought so, I would tell you.’

‘Then what is it? Shirley, magic and fairies are always your favourite topics of conversation—you cannot expect me to fail to notice when you carefully avoid them for days together. Are you afraid that I am too upset by what has happened to stand talk of Faerie any more? For I assure you I am not; upon the contrary, I wish even more to understand those places.’

Shirley looked at her for some moments in silence; then she rose to her feet and, pacing the room, told the story of what she had done: how she had found herself back in England, and how she had cast a spell to lead her once again into Faerie and to find Caroline.

‘You really cast a spell? You did practical magic?’ Caroline was amazed. ‘But this is fantastic—there has been scarcely any practical magic done in England for hundreds of years! You must tell me all about it; no more of this silly reticence.’

She had sprung to her feet and caught up Shirley’s hands in her excitement. Shirley only looked down, a little wistfully, at their joined hands and said, ‘None of my subsequent efforts have been successful—you saw the attempt at Belasis’s Scopus—I am afraid I have not suddenly gained a new power, after all.’

‘Well, that only makes it more of a mystery. Why did that one spell succeed?’

‘I have an idea of why. I have heard it said that great extremity of feeling, fear, or desperation, or—love, can inspire a magician to far greater acts of magic than she would usually be capable of. Caroline, I think that was the reason—I think it was love. Do you understand my meaning?’

Caroline was silent for some moments; then she said, softly, ‘For my part, I have heard that only true love can lead a person away from the enchantment of fairies. I remember that I thought of you when they offered me fairy food—the thought was why I knew I must not take it.’

The setting sun cast its soft light into the room; outside, a group of starlings whispered and whistled amongst themselves from the branches of the great cedar tree, their song the only thing to be heard in the peace of that lovely evening.

*

It was a strange thing, after all this, that ordinary life should go on as it had done before; but it did. Caroline returned to Briarfield rectory, and her days there were very much what they had been. Shirley, meanwhile, was much occupied with business during the next few weeks. The machine-breakers were once again making their presence felt, and Mr Moore and Mr Yorke, amongst others, were summoned to Fieldhead to discuss what ought to be done about the situation. These meetings were not easy or harmonious. Mr Yorke might be a proud businessman, but he was also a North Englishman, and, as much as he admired Mr Moore, he found some of that gentleman’s comments about the Raven King difficult to bear (privately, Miss Keeldar was inclined to take his side). It being felt, by now, that the matter was one of general concern, Mrs Pryor and Mr Hall made their own suggestions; and with their help, a plan was reached for how to manage affairs until the day, eagerly awaited by all, when the Orders in Council should be repealed.

Shirley and Caroline had only the little time this left them to continue their meetings, their walks and conversations, and their studies of magic—to say nothing of that adjusting to the new state of relations between them, which lay somewhere under all their words and looks, if it was not actually discussed, at this time. It was far less than either of them would have liked it to be; and, with the news that some relations of Shirley’s intended to descend upon Fieldhead for a long visit later in the summer, and that their plan of travelling together to Scotland would therefore have to be put off, Caroline began to become really discouraged. You will not blame her for a little despondency, reader. She had had, lately, to contend with more than one considerable overturning of her expectations in life, and was left on far less sure a footing than she had supposed would be her lot—to say nothing of journeying to the Otherlands and almost being stolen away by fairies—and it is not surprising that she should experience something of a reaction in the bafflingly quiet days that followed.

Shirley, however, was resolutely optimistic. The combination of newly-realised love, progress in her magic and a more-or-less successful resolution of the Johannite crisis acted upon her character with a great energising force. When, at last, they had again the happiness of an entire and uninterrupted day together, Caroline confided in her some of her fears and worries—of how they should live, of what the world would think of them and how it would treat them, of where, in short, they were going—and Shirley answered her with a confidence that would yet have been cheering, even had her words been only half as convincing as they were.

‘Well, I have no pressing reason ever to marry; Fieldhead and its estate are my own, after all,’ she said. ‘Certain of my relations will disapprove, of course, but they have no power to compel me, and I shall see’—she smiled—‘that they do not. And you can easily come and live here with me, in time.’

Caroline smiled a little shyly. ‘I should like that very much.’ 

They were walking together in the garden at Fieldhead; the green calm of midsummer lay over the scene, and on the high fells and in the deep lanes there was a heavy, slumbering silence.

‘You shall be my companion in magic; no one can object to that.’

‘Any more than they already do to women magicians, I suppose.’

Shirley laughed. ‘And see how much that has limited us! Perhaps we shall never be famed in London, but I have performed a piece of practical magic, you have seen at first hand a fairy-castle such as our theoretical magicians have only dreamt of, and we together may well have been the first English magicians to venture into the Otherlands since Martin Pale. I really think the prospects for women magicians are far better than is generally supposed. And, if this is so’—here her tone changed—‘why should it not be so for the other thing? Cary, I do know—I do not mean to be flippant—that the life we intend to lead, that we must lead, will not always be easy.’ Serious now, she held Caroline’s hands between her own, and the expression on her face was a curious blend of hardness and smiling certainty. ‘But—I never asked ease of life. I shall not flinch from it, and _you_ need never fear to face any hardship alone.’

In answer to this Caroline kissed her, determined and passionate, then said softly, returning the little smile, ’I might say the same to you.’

A while later Shirley, resuming her light tone, said, ‘In any case, it seems there are more magicians in England than Mr Norrell believes. I had a letter this morning from a young lady who lives not far from here, a Miss Redruth; she has heard of me by reputation (see how we become famous already, Caroline!) and wishes to make my acquaintance. Here is the letter.’

‘Not only does she study magic, but her two sisters and her brother also!’ said Caroline, when she had read it. ‘We must certainly invite them here. And if they have become known to us so soon, there could well be others—why, we might form quite a little society.’

It was a few days after this that Shirley walked over to the Rectory with the welcome news that she had managed to put off her relations’ planned visit, ‘and so we shall be able to take our Scottish trip, after all. Where ought we to go, do you think?’

‘The Hebrides,’ said Caroline, with decision. ‘Besides the wonderful and majestic scenery, there is so much of magical interest in the islands. Perhaps,’ she continued, eyes shining, ‘we shall discover the lost island of Athodel, and meet the ancient magician who still sleeps there behind the mist and rain.’

‘I think we are sure to see a selkie. We shall stand on the deck of our ship, watching the seals playing in the water, and suddenly one of them will rise up onto dry land, cast its seal-skin aside and walk from the waves as a fair maiden. Or perhaps they are not seals at all, but mermaids—as we shall discover to our peril.’

‘I can see them now. Some lonely rock, out in the middle of the sea—quite windswept and forlorn, but for the lovely picture of the mermaids sitting there, combing their hair like falling water, singing their treacherous song.’

‘A song that shall hold no charms for Squire Keeldar, as long as the beautiful Miss Helstone is by his side.’

‘She shall not leave it,’ said Caroline solemnly. And they both burst into laughter, only ended when Shirley pulled Caroline close and kissed her—a kiss of sheer joy, so delighted were they both at the prospect of this new adventure.

**Author's Note:**

> The quoted lyrics are from 'Thomas the Rhymer' and 'King Orfeo', both traditional ballads about fairies.


End file.
